That thunderclap woke Lü Siya.
She panted for a long time in the soft, flesh-like darkness, her mind still echoing with everything she had experienced over the past few hours—or decades, even dozens of cycles.
In some cycles, she had fought shoulder to shoulder with Meng Chao until the flames of doomsday fell from the sky, burning and devouring everything.
In some cycles, she had cast Meng Chao aside and gone it alone, becoming the supreme queen of Dragon City and even the entire Otherworld.
In still other cycles, she had evolved and expanded without end, gradually shedding human form and its shackles, becoming something grotesque, ugly, and shocking in the eyes of onlookers. Yet it was precisely that form that had allowed her to break through the limits of carbon-based lifeforms time and again, reaching straight into life's deepest mysteries.
Unfortunately, it had all been false.
Or rather, they were mirages that had yet to happen, like stars visible far beyond the horizon, elusive and perhaps forever beyond reach.
It took Lü Siya a full three minutes to stuff her drifting soul back into the shell of her body, here and now.
Then she realized that what had awakened her from Infinite Reincarnation had not been thunder.
It was Meng Chao's cry from deep underground, impossible to tell whether it held grief or joy, pain or pleasure, whether victory was in sight or there was nowhere left to run.
"Meng Chao?"
Lü Siya gathered her focus, doing everything she could to control her aching brain and powerless limbs. She struggled to her feet and surveyed her surroundings.
The companions around her did the same.
Long Feijun, Shen Yupeng, Wu Haibo, and the other rescue team members had all awakened from a great dream like Lü Siya. They looked at